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July 25, 2006
I Just Paid Who?
Those who know me well know that I like to vote with my wallet. I don’t buy Nestle products if I can avoid them. I try to purchase organic, recycled and biodegradeable products whenever I can. I don’t shop at Walmart. I don’t buy a certain pizza because I don’t like where the company’s money goes. I avoid films by certain actors because I disagree with their politics (coughMelGibsoncough), and I don’t shop with certain local merchants because I also disagree with their politics, and the nasty way they have (like Mel, huh) of mixing them with religion.
I'm a Democrat and a capitalist, and as a good capitalist, I try to make sure my money only goes to people and organizations I support.
So imagine how appalled I was to discover yesterday that I’d given money to the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh.
Those of you who lived in Idaho and Oregon, and perhaps other parts of the US, may recall the Rajneeshpuram in Antelope, Oregon, which more or less flourished there in the 1980’s. Until the Bhagwan was arrested for immigration violations and deported. I was in high school while this stuff was going on, so it’s all kind of stuck in my head.
Let me just give you a few of the juicier details in case you’ve forgotten:
• Poisoning salad bars in the town of Antelope with salmonella to affect the turnout for a local election. (Still the largest bioterrorist act in the USA.)
• Dissolution of the marriages of all his followers in order to promote his doctrine of free love.
• Requiring his followers to give up all their worldly goods. Which he used to buy a fleet of Rolls Royces (he had 90) and other toys.
• Bussing thousands of homeless people from other Northwest cities into Antelope, keeping them hopped up on drugs & beer long enough to get residency and vote in the city elections and then shipping them back home & dumping them on the streets.
Really lovely guy, the Bhagwan.
So how did I end up giving his followers money? That’s an interesting and roundabout story.
As part of getting ready to participate in National Novel Writing Month last November, I went looking for things I could use as prompts. And I came across a lovely set of Zen tarot cards. I’m not telling you anything more than that. I don’t wish to promote these people more than I already have. You can google them yourself if you're that desperate to know
These cards are gorgeous. The artwork on them is stunning. Very evocative. I hunted around until I found a set. They’re loosely based on Zen, loosely based on the tarot, but to be honest, I didn’t care about either of those. I was looking at the imagery. I figured it would be really helpful stuff. I could look at one of the pictures, study it and use it as a guiding idea for writing on days when I got stuck.
The only thing that I found odd was the addition of a card called, “The Master,” which shows this cute little Asian guy with a hat and a long white beard. It is, according to the included book, The Master himself, the one the deck was created by/named for. His name meant nothing to me. I did think it was a little odd, a little anti-Zen, if you will, to create a card for yourself in the deck, but I didn’t have to include the card in my prompts. And some of the stuff the Master supposedly wrote about the various other images was really helpful.
Then, a couple of days ago, I was talking to another longtime Northwesterner about these cards and he said, “Isn’t that the guy who used to be the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh?”
I don’t know why I just assumed that after the criminal charges, deportation and death that the Rajneeshis would have dissolved and gone away. Possibly because they all left Antelope and I didn’t hear about them on the news anymore. But the idea that I had given money to a group of people who most assuredly did not need it really annoyed me. So yesterday I googled him. And sure enough. It’s the same damn guy. Well, his sect, anyway.
And even though they’re now in India (back in his hometown, where he ended up after no other country in the world would take him), they are still bilking people for money.
Including me.
I am keeping the cards. The imagery is still gorgeous and evocative. Though I don’t think I’ll ever be able to use them with the same openness of mind and heart I did before. There will always be the taint of the Bhagwan on them now. But I’m tossing the book. Well, recycling, really.
And the Master card? The one that I found mildly annoying when I thought it was just some random Eastern mystic? I’m cutting that one up. It doesn’t need to be in the deck at all. It’s a petty revenge, I know. But it’s all that’s left to me. It’s been almost ten months since I bought the deck. It’s not like I’m getting my money back.
Posted by sally at July 25, 2006 07:53 AM
©2006 - All content copyright Sally Eames-Harlan unless otherwise noted